And suddenly you know… It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. -Meister Eckhart
Raya was sliding off of Tormund's back. She was sliding and those people- those things- they were closing in on them. She didn't know where Tormund found his strength or his speed at a time like this. Hell, she wasn't sure how he could think critically.
"There's," Tormund paused to take a few quick breaths, "an arrow in your quiver," he let out another breath, "It has a black ribbon. Shoot it," he huffed and readjusted his hold on me, "Shoot it and damn it girl you better not miss."
Raya looked around frantically. She was hanging on to Tormund by only her legs. She dug around in the quiver until she saw it, the one arrow with a small black piece of cloth tied to it. She yanked it out and looked at it. She really looked at it. It was the strangest shaped arrow point she had ever seen. It was shockingly small, yet sharp.
"Your arrow-"
"Dragonglass!" he snapped, "Shoot."
Raya looked over her shoulder. She closed the arrow and bow in one hand and pushed her hood off of her head with the other.
"There's only one arrow!" she snapped back.
"Then make it count."
Raya licked her lips. Her heart was pounding. It was pounding so loudly she was sure that he could hear it. The White Walkers looked like they were walking. They looked like any other person walking except for the fact that they seem to glide. They seemed to glide and they seemed to close in on them. They were getting closer. They were a few yards away. Raya knew she could hit one. She didn't have a choice. She had to hit one.
"Can you run?" Tormund asked, his grip tightening on her thighs.
Raya thought about it. She thought about it quickly. This was life or death.
"Yes," it was a lie.
She wasn't sure if she could run, but she was sure that not both of them needed to die here. Tormund had people. He had a daughter and he had men and women that followed his lead. She was already suspected dead by everyone on the other side of the wall anyway. She had probably been mourned by now. Jon would be the only one to know the truth. He was strong. He was a survivor. He would make it. He had brothers to live for now.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!" Raya nocked her arrow and aimed.
She pulled her arrow back and then took a deep breath before releasing. She had done good. Her arrow had hit its mark. She'd aimed for the biggest one. It hadn't been a hard choice. The bigger the target was the better chance she had of hitting it. She had been right. The arrow had hit.
She watched. Raya watched as the White Walker looked like he was turning in to an ice statue. She watched as he paused in mid stride and then shattered. She was truly seeing this in person.
"I hit one!" she said excitedly, "I did it!"
Tormund paused. He paused and Raya looked behind her to gage the distance between them and their hunters.
It took her a while to realize that she was sliding off of his back.
"Run!" Tormund screamed.
And Gods did she run. She had heard enough. Her leg stung but she was mostly fine. She didn't know if her will to live was actually that strong. She didn't know if her ancestors had somehow lent her the strength. She didn't know if it was the adrenaline coursing through her body or if that horrible ointment Tormund had applied to her wound had truly made that big of a difference. She wasn't sure where she found the speed, but she knew that she had never run faster. Her hair flew behind her with the wind that had suddenly decided to make an appearance.
She looked back to see how far she'd gone and how far behind her Tormund was. She was sure she hadn't seen him pass her.
She paused. He was not behind her. He was running in the opposite direction. He was running towards the White Walkers. Raya looked both ways. She tried to think quickly. She was panicking. One of the White Walkers was heading in towards him. The other was continuing to move straight. He was moving towards her. She cursed. She couldn't help Tormund. She wished that she could, but she couldn't.
She couldn't even save herself.
X
Tormund ran. He ran and glanced quickly between the two White Walkers. Only one of them seemed to be interested in his whereabouts. That meant that the other one was after Raya. He needed to move quickly. He felt the snow start to fall on to his beard. This was not what he needed, but he pushed his complaints away. This was survival of the fittest. He had been born and trained to survive. He hadn't been killed by some of the strongest, biggest, most agile men he had ever known. He wouldn't be chopped down by some undead cunts.
He ran faster and then dropped backwards, sliding across the ice-covered ground. He grabbed the arrow Raya had shot from where it was stuck in the snow and rolled on to his stomach to jump back to his feet. He stabbed the dragon glass through the nearest White Walker and didn't pause to watch it shatter.
Raya was standing some yards away as if she'd been frozen in place. She looked like she was somewhere far away. She was zoned out. The White Walker was closing in on her and she was standing there. He ran faster. That stupid idiot girl was standing there like an animal watching its predator close in on it with not one care about its life. The White Walker reached an arm out towards Raya and Tormund jumped for him, his arm outstretched.
The White Walker shattered before Tormund could even get in to contact with it and he crashed in to Raya knocking her to the ground.
X
Raya was sure she had seen what she'd thought she'd seen. She'd seen that red smoke again. She'd seen red smoke again and she'd seen a child. She had seen a child that looked nothing like a child, a child that looked like something she had never seen before. She had seen a child no older than Rickon and Bran shoot an arrow in to a White Walker and disappear. She was sure of it. She would bet her life on it. She knew that she had seen a child vanish. She had watched him vanish. It was mere seconds before Tormund had knocked all of the wind out of her lungs, but she was sure all the same.
She laid stretched out on her back in the snow. She was going insane. She was losing her mind. She was seeing White Walkers and children that looked nothing like children. It was the blood loss. It had to be the blood loss. She didn't bother moving. She took quick shallow breaths. Her heart was beating through her chest and her ears were ringing. She couldn't hear a word that Tormund was saying but she knew that he was knelt over her legs. He'd picked himself up off of her and he was screaming at her. She couldn't register the words that were coming out of his mouth. She knew that he was visibly upset. He was shaking her, shaking her and yelling.
He looked at her. Tormund looked at her in a way she didn't think he had ever looked at her before and she thought that maybe, just maybe, he almost looked worried.
Raya blinked her eyes a few times. It had started to snow around them. She was getting cold again… her back anyway. She was glad that she could at least physically feel something. She was sure she would start shaking soon. Tormund was freeing her of her backpack and forcing the bow and arrow out of her hands. She hadn't even realized that she was still holding them. She knew that he was throwing that blanket over her shoulders and pulling her hood back over her head. He sat back and grabbed Raya by her shoulders and he did the one thing he could think of. He began to shake her again.
X
Jon Snow looked around and held down his first reflex which was to throw up the contents of his stomach. He was standing in the center of a circle made out of the body parts of horses, partially hidden beneath the white blanket of snow and partially visible. He could see body parts as far as his eyes allowed him to, body parts that eventually turned in to the full bodies of horses. He couldn't think of someone that would murder their own horse especially in this sort of weather. He couldn't think of any sane man that would drag their dead horse around to make damned circles in the snow. What purpose did it serve?
"Always the artist," Mance Ryder said to no one in particular.
Jon looked up and at the elder man and then to Ygritte whose eyes were glued to Mance. She had a stronger stomach than most. He had to give her that.
Jon was thankful for the snow and the cold. The smell of death wasn't a welcoming one and he was glad that it wasn't something that had choked them as soon as they'd entered the winds.
"All of these horses," Mance continued to mumble to himself.
"And no men," Jon finished.
He'd been beside Mance every chance that he'd gotten. When the man had decided to venture forward it was Jon, Ygritte, Orell and the Lord of Bones who had run to volunteer.
Orell was a seemingly older man, older than Jon anyway. He was small in stature with long, thin, unevenly cut black hair. He wore a hat instead of a hood. He could warg like Raya. Jon had seen him do it. He didn't use a direwolf. He used an eagle.
The man had warged for an extended amount of time and then come back to, to tell everyone in attendance that he had seen dead crows.
That's what they were. Jon's thoughts paused as he looked at the older man. Dead crows. These were the horses that belonged to his brothers.
Mance looked at the younger man before turning back to Orell.
"You said there were dead crows!" Ygritte accused closing in on Orell.
"There was," he said simply, calmly.
Ygritte looked around at the dead horses again and Jon closed in on her. He set a hand on her shoulder.
"How many men were here?" Mance turned to face Jon and Ygritte.
"About 300," Jon answered almost instantly.
"And do you know what those men are now?"
Jon's hand fell from Ygritte's shoulder. He didn't comment.
"Meat for their army," Mance sighed and Jon didn't know whether he meant the horses or the 300 men.
"Do you think anyone got away?" Jon asked.
He felt Ygritte and Orell look at him.
"It's not impossible," Mance shrugged, "They took a big gamble coming north. And they lost. Now their best fighting men are dead and whether he's lord commander of the Night's Watch or a blue eyed corpse," Mance turned his back to Jon and looked around, "he's a long way from home," he crossed his arms over his chest, "Ygritte, if Tormund doesn't meet up with us in 3 days you're scaling the wall! Pick your top 20 men and take that one," he motioned to Jon.
Jon froze. The Free Folks planned on climbing and crossing the wall.
X
Raya had regained her hearing. She now heard everything at once.
"You stupid idiot girl!" Tormund shook her, "Have you lost you damned mind?"
He was still yelling. Raya wondered how Tormund managed to even still have a voice. She blinked her eyes at him.
"I'm," she paused and restarted, "I'm sorry, Tormund."
He let out a gust of air and then smiled at her, a big wide toothed smile that made Raya smile in return.
"We did it," he chuckled, "We fucking did it," he collapsed backwards in to the snow relieved.
He was right. They'd been faced with White Walkers and they had lived to tell the tale… hopefully. Raya looked around and then at a sprawled out Tormund.
"We need to move," she pulled herself to her feet.
The snow was still falling, but it was nothing too severe.
"We survived," Tormund thought out loud.
He looked up at Raya. She was smiling as she shoved her blanket in to her bag. He watched her dig around in the snow. He knew what it was she was looking for. He raised one of his arms to show her the arrow with the black ribbon tied to the end still in his hand. She nodded once and then stood above him.
"We need to move," she repeated.
"Yeah, yeah," Tormund grumbled and sat up, "I just needed to catch my breath," he smiled again and Raya was genuinely smitten.
For someone who joked as much as Tormund she was surprised to realize that this was probably the most genuine smile she had ever seen on his face. She looked at him and her smile traveled up to her eyes.
"What?" Tormund raised an eyebrow at her.
"You look happy," she said simply.
"I am!" Tormund handed the arrow up to her and she jammed it in to the quiver over her shoulder, "I'm so happy I could kiss you, little Stark," he laughed.
"Okay."
Raya paused. She paused and she thought about her response. She should have thought about it before she let it escape her mouth. She hadn't. She never thought anything through. She cursed in her head and she knew that she was blushing and she didn't just mean her cheeks. She knew that a slight red was entering her checks and the stretch of her neck. She was glad that Tormund couldn't see it. She pulled her hood down on to her head more hoping that it would cast a shadow over her face big enough to hide the embarrassment she knew was there. Tormund laughed. He hopped to his feet and shook his head in disbelief.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
Raya nodded. She didn't trust her voice or her words to not betray her.
"Good," he said gruffly.
Tormund Giantsbane closed in on Raya and stuck his head out, craned his head down and ever so lightly brushed his lips against hers. Raya froze and Tormund laughed again before grabbing her hand in one of his and starting a swift decent down the mountain dragging her along.
"We don't need to get caught out in the open at night, little Stark!" he boasted loudly.